A Snapshot of Early Childhood Development in Australia 2012

Executive summaryIn 2012 the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) was completed nationwide for the secondtime. A Snapshot of Early Childhood Development in Australia 2012 AEDI National Report,provides a second opportunity to review the picture of early childhood development outcomes forAustralian children.In the 2012 data collection, information was collected on 289,973 Australian children in their firstyear of formal full-time school, representing 96.5 per cent of all Australian children enrolled tobegin school in 2012.The results from the AEDI are publicly available and provide communities around Australia withinformation about how local children have developed by the time they start school, across fiveareas of early childhood development: physical health and wellbeing, social competence,emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills (school-based), and communication skills andgeneral knowledge.In addition to this national report, the 2012 AEDI results are reported at the community level. Thiscan help communities understand how their local children are doing compared with the rest ofAustralia. Communities can use the AEDI results to develop and evaluate their efforts to improveoutcomes for children. Community profiles and mapped results, providing visual representation ofthe degree and concentration of developmental vulnerability at the community level, are availableonline at maps.aedi.org.au.In the year before entering formal full-time school, 94.8 per cent of all Australian children arereported to have had some form of non-parental early childhood education and/or care experience.Across Australia there is diversity in the languages spoken by children with 305 languages otherthan English spoken in the home. There are also 14,173 (4.9 per cent) children with reportedchronic physical, intellectual and medical needs (special needs status).Key findings2012 resultsThe majority of children are doing well on each of the five AEDI developmental domains.Overall in Australia, 22.0 per cent of children are developmentally vulnerable on one or moredomain/s.Overall in Australia, 10.8 per cent of children are developmentally vulnerable on two or moredomains.The majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are developmentally on track oneach of the five AEDI developmental domains. However Indigenous children are more thantwice as likely to be developmentally vulnerable than non-indigenous children.There are children in Australia who only speak English, but are reported as not proficient inEnglish. These children are more likely to be developmentally vulnerable on all the AEDIdomains.Females are less likely to be developmentally vulnerable on one or more domains compared tomales. However, males show a greater change (2.0 percentage points) over their 2009 resultswhen compared with females (1.1 percentage points).5